Most of us have some emotional wounding from our childhood. It might be an event, a person, or a memory that created a cluster of pain and beliefs surrounding that pain. Years can go by, and as long as that wound is still festering, all it might take is a word, or a certain look on someone’s face to trigger it. Then suddenly you are embroiled in a cloud of turbulence, lashing out at the poor person or thing that set you off, telling yourself a story of pain. A story that seems so true, that controls you so much, that eats away at your happiness. Here are some tips to begin healing painful emotional wounds from the past.

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Steps

1

You have to understand what’s going on. You were wounded: you created a set of beliefs that you can explore by looking at the story you tell yourself about your wounding. No doubt you were young and had limited understanding of life and your environment, and survival was paramount; at the time you didn’t have all the ways to interpret the events that you do now. So first, look at the story you tell yourself. What are your beliefs around this issue? It’s important to do this so you can start to get some space the next time your wound is triggered and the emotional charge comes up. The charge may still overwhelm you, but now, there is a little, but growing part of you that is watching.

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2

Watch with compassion. Everyone has charges and stories, beliefs and the pain that accompanies them. You were young. You created these beliefs to help you survive. You did it to protect yourself. There’s nothing wrong with them, it’s a normal human thing we all do. You’re doing something about it now that will heal you. Awesome!

3

When a charge comes up, don’t push it away with your thoughts, don’t resist. Just feel the energy in your body. Be with it. Get out of your head where the story about your pain is going on. We tell ourselves our pain story to keep us in our head and protect us from actually feeling the pain and also to remind ourselves that we don’t want another similar wound happen again. What’s really going on, though, is that the story is perpetuating the pain, leaving you vulnerable, and even attracting similar events. So, it’s not working, is it? The story about your pain is not in the present moment. The story is about your past or how it will affect your future. ‘Now’ is the place of power, the place where you have the power to heal. So, feel the energy in your body and this brings you into the present moment. Without the story, it’s just energy, it’s not pain. Be with it. Breathe. It’s OK, because magic is going to happen and every wound has an amazing gift. You want to heal and find out what that is.

4

As you get out of your head, breathe, and feel the energy of your wound, something amazing happens. You are giving yourself the love and attention you really needed when you were young, the tender love that would have prevented the wound in the first place and has the power to heal it now. Through the power of your awareness and your love, the energy will start to dissolve. The charge will lose some power and you will feel a shift. Now you are the one loving and healing, not the victim.

5

These charges contain a lot of energy that has been fed sometimes for years and years, so repeat this process as necessary. It’s not how many times you fall down that counts, but how many times you get up. Each time you do, you dissolve it some more and your healing, loving, present moment awareness increases. It may take time, or it may happen in an instant, but your awareness and love will set you free.

6

Ask yourself what you learned from the wounding? There is always a gift. Is it compassion? Strength? Love? A shift in perception? That is for you to discover and enjoy. For me, the ultimate gift is freedom! To be able to see the world as it is, and to see myself as I truly am.

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Tips

You can't go back to the past. You can only heal now, in the present moment.

Resolve the conflict within yourself. Don't let it turn into a circular argument. Break the cycle.

Develop some affirmations and get support to change your view of yourself if you were told you were a loser, a failure, a slut, selfish, cruel, etc. Chances are the person who told you those things was projecting.

Do not blame yourself for having been abused. You didn't cause it and no one deserves abuse.

Feel the energy of the wound. Be brave, it's just energy. Get out of your head.

Be compassionate with yourself and others. We are all suffering from wounds of some kind.

Try to understand what led the people who hurt you to behave the way they did. If the person who hurt you was mentally ill, accept that person could not control his/her symptoms. If they were good to you and hurt you deeply but it wasn't intentional, it was a misunderstanding, try to forgive them or reach acceptance and heal.

Rethink what happened and look at how healthy people behaved in the same situation. Put it into perspective, understand the situation.

If these emotional wounds are caused by an alcoholic or addict in the family, visit Adult Children of Alcoholics groups and share your experience. Like other support groups these are very good for identifying what happened and accepting that you didn't deserve it, that their distorted ideas of life are wrong and dangerous to themselves as much as to you. You didn't cause it and you couldn't do anything about it or change them now.

Telling yourself how bad it is and repeating the story of the wound only makes it worse with one MAJOR exception. If you are dealing with the wounds of prejudice, discrimination and other shared traumas, repeating the story with supportive others who've shared the experience can lessen it.

There is always a gift the wound gives you. Receive it.

If it involves a close family member, talk to them about it, it could change your whole view of the situation.

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